Daily archives for July 21st, 2015

Did you know about her performances in some of the leading Film Noir classics such as the one that inspired the picture above (with John Payne in 1952’s Kansas City Confidential)?

She was called “the most utilitarian of Dark City dames” by film noir scholar EddieMuller. She was that and more.

Our Monday Quiz is designed to provide you with perhaps a tad more information about Gray that you already possessed. To review the questions, just scroll down to the blog below.

Now to our answers:

1) Answer: Not sure what this bit of dialogue means since Gray was both pretty and smart. In any case, it comes from (c) 1956’s The Killing in which she plays Sterling Hayden’s confused sweetheart.

2) Answer: b) False. Gray was born in 1922 in Staplehurst, Nebraska. She studied acting at Hamline Univ. in St.Paul, Minnesota, then migrated to California where she caught the attention of studio scouts. Her family was solid but not exactly affluent nor sophisticated.

3) Answer: Gray worked a ton on tv from early on in her career, especially in (a) the Perry Mason series in the mid-Sixties.

4) Answer: d) Charles McGraw. She worked with Tyrone Power in 1947’s Nightmare Alley, with Montgomery Clift in 1948’s Red River. And with John Payne (see above).

5) Answer: Gray’s first husband was Rod Amateau, a tv producer-director who worked a lot in the Fifties and supervised The Burns and Allen Show. He later had a hand in producing Dukes of Hazard.